Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Sobchak’s Statement on Crimea May Not Matter Now But It has Profound Consequences for the Future, Portnikov Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, October 25 – Kseniya Sobchak’s
statement that Crimea is Ukrainian under international law may not matter too
much in the short term, Vitaly Portnikov says. On the one hand, it may all be
part of a Kremlin game to appear tolerant. And on the other, she won’t have the
chance to implement it because she isn’t going to be elected Russian president.

Those twin realities have led many
to dismiss her words, but that is a mistake, the Ukrainian commentator says, because
by making them, Sobchak has returned the discussion of the status of Crimea to
open political discussion in Russia, something that had previously been
impossible because of a legal ban on call for changes in Russia’s external
borders.

She has found a way to express
something that no one could before. Admittedly, Portnikov continues, her
position “will not influence the majority of Russians” at least not today. “But
what is important is not the number of people” who support her or this
position. What matters is that it is now again in Russia’s public space (ru.krymr.com/a/28814786.html).

Most opposition leaders, including
Aleksey Navalny, have felt that they cannot challenge the “Crimea is Ours”
majority head one even if they are so inclined; and Navalny by all the evidence
isn’t. Instead, he is quite prepared to play to the imperialist majority
because that is a way to get votes now.

But “sooner or later,” Portnikov
says, “with Putin or without this aging ruler, Russian society will be forced
to come to an understanding of the necessity of normalizing relations with
Ukraine, with the return of the territories it has seized, with a final rejection
of an expansionist foreign policy, and with a condemnation of chauvinism and
aggression.”

Sobchak’s words, however little they
affect Russia right now, help bring that day closer, the analyst says, because “Russia
is a country in which three percent support for this or that position can
easily be transformed into 73 percent by actions of the authorities or
television. That is something that must always be remembered.”